


Solstice

by emmaliza



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Complicated Relationships, Family Issues, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Honor, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 03:06:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12949950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaliza/pseuds/emmaliza
Summary: Gendry is not Robert. But he is somewhat like him, and perhaps more importantly, he is still here.





	Solstice

**Author's Note:**

> written for the asoiaf kink meme prompt: "Gendry/Ned, in the end, he misses Robert more than his honour."

He sees the boy again as he's carted off to the Wall in chains, kept separate from the common criminals but still, nonetheless a criminal. Young Gendry stops, stares at him a second, and smiles. “Lord Stark,” he says. “Fancy seeing you again here.”

Ned is snapped from his reverie, and to everyone's great surprise, he smiles back. “I could say the same to you,” he says. He does not ask why the boy is here, lest Gendry ask the same question in return – although he's sure all of King's Landing has heard by now. Still, it seems like what Robert would do, to make a jape of such a matter. _If I'd never met this boy, I wouldn't be here,_ Ned thinks, but that's hardly Gendry's fault. There's no-one he can blame for his mistakes but himself.

Gendry shrugs. “Master got sick of me,” he says, and Ned frowns. That does not sound right. But what would he know? “Well, see you at the Wall then?”

Ned nods and the boy walks off, leaving him to sigh, to resign himself to his fate.

* * *

The journey to the Wall is long, he forgot just how much so. He spends months in his chains, barely let out to piss, trying not to think of escape. _I am a traitor,_ he reminds himself. He accepted their judgement, and now he must learn the lie, tell it to himself again and again until the words slip easily from his tongue – as he did once before. At night, he prays, though he fears the Old Gods cannot hear him – he prays for Sansa, that the Lannisters will keep their side of the bargain, and keep her safe. He prays for Arya. He does not even know what happened to Arya.

But last time he heard, Robb was leading an army across the land, in hopes of freeing him. Dread and hope fester in Ned's heart. What if Robb's army finds them? What if they do try to free him? Would he go? Would Catelyn be there? What would happen to the girls then?

Sometimes he watches Gendry from his cage, though they don't talk often – Gendry is a strong young man, so he's often employed on menial tasks. He's not a highborn traitor, so he's trusted enough not to run away – he has nowhere to go. He looks like Robert, black hair shining in the late summer sun, muscles beneath his thin shirt straining with exhaustion. He makes Ned remember Autumn in the Eyrie, late afternoons sparring with Robert as the sun set around them. Robert usually won their bouts, but always with an easy grin, a clap to Ned's shoulder and a magnanimous word after. It never was like him to gloat, unless there was a woman involved.

It is easier to remember that Robert, bold, brave and kind, than the Robert he went to King's Landing for, the Robert who smiled when they presented two dead children to him, the Robert he had to vow to his dying sister to protect her son from. But still, even after all that, he loved Robert – as much as his sons, as much as his daughters, as much as wife, as much as Lyanna – all those people he will never see again. He did it all for love of Robert, for he could not bear to betray even his memory – not again.

Looking at Gendry, it's tempting to say it was all worth it. But he knows it wasn't.

* * *

Jon is there when they finally reach the Wall, and as soon as Ned is free, his son embraces him with every ounce of strength he has. “Father,” he says, and Ned holds him tight, clinging to the one child he has left (the child that is not even his own, and yet for better or for worse, has always belonged to him and him alone).

Once they break their embrace, Jon looks down to the snowy ground. “I admit, I don't understand what happened.” Pain wracks through Ned's heart. Jon is so young still, barely more than a boy. In some other world, he would be king now – or at least, have men fighting to make him so.

Ned sighs deeply and cups the back of his neck. “I'll explain it all soon, I promise.” He leans in and kisses his son's brow. He won't. He will lie and leave out crucial details, as he has always done for his son.

He asks Lord Commander Mormont where Benjen his, and Lord Commander Mormont tells him – as much as he can. _He is only missing, he might still come back,_ Ned tells himself, but he can't shake the feeling that like his wife and children, like Lyanna, like Brandon, like Father, like even his mother, he will never see Benjen again. Part of him starts to wonder how many of these people truly lived, and how many of them he just dreamed. They don't all feel real anymore.

Robert, Robert always felt real.

Not all the men are as pleased to see him as Jon is. Plenty of them he sent to the Wall himself, and they laugh to see the high and mighty Lord Stark condemned to their level. Others though, honourable Northern men, even some of the criminals – they whisper what an injustice it is that he's been sent here. Lord Stark would never be a traitor. Some even whisper that he should somehow be restored to his seat. Ned thinks he prefers the men who hate him.

But it's easier because Jon is there. It is easier to accept he's been condemned for committing treason when he is always reminded that he did.

* * *

Before he knows it, Jon and Gendry are friends. Ned does not push that, does not ask for it, he just wakes up one morning and learns it has happened. He watches Jon help train the other recruits with a proud smile, and at first, Gendry seems to be one more. His natural strength, his father's strength, gives him talent, but his stubbornness makes him slow to learn. Still, eventually Jon gets through to him, and before he knows it Ned sees Gendry sitting at Jon's table, with his friends, mocking him for being as sullen as he is – the splitting image of him and Robert at that age.

One day Ned watches him and Jon spar in the yard, looking as if they have no care where they are, or who might be watching. It makes Ned think of those days in the Eyrie, when everything seemed so easy, if and only if Robert was around. The honourable Ned Stark would let Robert talk him into anything.

Still, he realises that Jon and Gendry are not him and Robert. Next to them sits the Tarly boy, Sam, Jon's closest companion – a sweet boy, but fat and craven, and not a drop like Robert. Ned still remembers Robert cursing Lord Tarly's name, the one man who could strike him in his prime. Jon and Gendry are not as close as Jon and Sam. They are friends, but nothing more.

Ned thinks of the days he remembers, but he also thinks of the nights he tries not to. He's sure Gendry and Jon have never done anything like that. Have Jon and Sam? He really doesn't want to know. He doesn't like knowing that he did, that he was so easily seduced by Robert's easy laugh and rough hands, hands that only ever came looking for him if they couldn't find a girl they preferred, but still, sometimes did.

Jon and Gendry are not him and Robert. But they look like them, sort of.

* * *

He says his vows before a Heart Tree beyond the Wall, but after that, he returns and is locked away from them. Ned is not a man inclined to think the gods have abandoned him, but like his brother, he has no idea where they might be – and he suspects he will never see them again.

There was no Heart Tree in the Eyrie, he had to make do with what few trees he could find, and yet he never felt so far away from the gods – not standing beside Jon Arryn, the father the gods gave him other than his own, and beside Robert, the brother they gave him too. He remembers the oak tree he wed in front of at Riverrun, and he thinks of Catelyn, praying in the sept he built her. Does she pray for him to return to her somehow? Or has she given up on him? Will she wed again? That seems unlike her. His wife was always stubborn as a mule, and she would not break her vow just because the Lannisters have broken it for her.

He stands on top of the Wall and stares across the vast, empty snow. He's sure he's not the first man to be tempted to jump. At least, it would free Cat, it would free all the North from the burden of his ghost. But a greater part of him is tempted not to jump, but to run – to somehow sneak through the gate and disappear beyond the wall. His brother is out there somewhere, after all, and even if Benjen is long since a man, isn't it Ned's duty to look after him? Didn't he do all this for his family?

Ned never wanted Benjen to go to the Wall. He did so while Cat was pregnant with Sansa, saying Ned had secured his heir and spare, and he wasn't necessary anymore. Ned told him that he still had only the one son, and no other brothers; if Catelyn's babe was a girl, she would still struggle to succeed if something happened to Robb. They still needed their uncle. But he knew he couldn't order Ben to stay, and so he went.

Really, what it made Ned think of was Brandon, and Father, who both said they would come back and never did – and Lyanna, who didn't say anything. He thought he would never see his brother again.

He can imagine Robert whispering in his ear as he stares across the white plains. _Come on Ned, let's just go. We were never meant to be men of the Watch. We'll run away and live like wildlings, eating sheep shit and buggering each other for warmth. It'll be fun!_ Ned chuckles to himself.

“What are you thinking about then?” Ned turns and sees young Gendry behind him. He looks out of place in his black furs. _Your father,_ he wants to answer, but Gendry doesn't know that – which is for the best. If Cersei's children aren't Robert's, then the king's bastards have almost as good a claim on the throne as anyone. Ned doesn't know quite what the realm would make of a bastard claiming the throne from atop the Wall, but most likely it would only get the poor boy killed.

“Home. Family,” is his actual answer, and then he pauses. “I know men of the Watch aren't men to have families, but–”

Gendry scoffs. “I won't tell, Lord Stark.”

“Ned,” he corrects the boy. The imagines Robert's voice, the way he always said that word, like no-one could possibly know Eddard Stark better than him. “I'm not a lord anymore.”

Gendry nods along, then sighs. “Listen. I won't say I can possibly understand, but – I am sorry this happened to you,” he says. “You're a good man, Ned. I don't believe for a second what they said about you being a traitor. And I think you must have been a better lord than most of the fuckers they have ruling us.”

_I am a traitor. Just not the one they said I was._ He smiles. “Thank you, Gendry.” Sometimes he has to remind himself the boy has a name of his own.

Gendry sighs. “Right. Well, I'm on shift now. You should go get some sleep.”

Ned is tempted not to. He's tempted to stay with the boy. He's tempted to kiss him, like he never kissed Robert. He's tempted to _fuck_ him, right here atop the wall, where anyone could see. He's tempted to be brave and bold and and take what he wants, to forget his honour like Robert was always telling him to.

His honour is already ruined, by the lies the Lannisters' made him tell, by the lies Lyanna did, by the lies Robert did. So what difference does it make?

But it does. Everything he was has been taken from him, and his honour was part of that. His honour might have been a lie, but even so, he's not quite ready to let it go.

He nods. “Right. Good night, Gendry.”

“Night, my lord,” the boy says, unthinking.

* * *

Jon tells him he means to go on the expedition to find Benjen, and Ned wants to forbid it. “It is not safe.” _You won't come back. I'll never see you again either._

“Of course it's not safe,” Jon tells him, and looks insulted that Ned thought he had to point that out. “But I'm a man of the Night's Watch, Father. And he's my uncle. I'll bring him back or die trying.”

“And what will our family think?” Ned asks. “When they hear you're dead?”

Jon gives him a withering look. “You're one to talk,” he says. “You haven't written since they sent you here. For all they know, you are dead.”

That's true. Ned's sure his correspondence is being carefully monitored, but Jon has offered a thousand times to include whatever message he wants in his own letters. But Ned can't, not yet. Right now it hurts to much. Writing to his family seems like a promise to come back, a promise he knows he can't keep.

He sighs deeply, lost for an answer. “You can't stop me, Father,” Jon tells him, and that's true – Ned has no authority over him anymore. His bastard – his bastard who should be king – is not any higher, nor any lower than him.

He tells Lord Commander Mormont he means to go on the expedition too, but he's refused. Mormont is honest enough to tell him why. “There'll be uproar across the North if you don't come back. The Watch can't afford that.” The Lannisters will punish them for it. Ned understands.

At least Jon does not promise he'll come back.

* * *

He's woken up in the middle of the night by a knock upon his door, and at first he thinks it's Jon. He thinks they're back, they've found Benjen, and now Jon wants to make things right after they had that fight.

Ned soon realises how unlikely that is, they've only been gone a couple of days, and when he opens his door, he's not surprised that he doesn't find Jon there. He is surprised, however, that Gendry is there instead. He blinks a couple of times, trying to make sure he's not dreaming. “Why are you here?” he asks.

Gendry looks faintly embarrassed. “Sorry, m– Ned. I didn't mean to wake you.”

Ned smiles at him. “That's fine.” It's not like Robert didn't wake him up in the middle of the night a thousand times. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Just wanted to ask some advice, that's all,” Gendry says. “I'm freezing my bollocks off, and I can't sleep.” Ned has to burst out laughing at that. _That sounds like Robert._ “I would have asked Jon, but. So how do you sleep in this bloody cold, Northerner?”

“Practice, I suppose,” Ned tells him. “Sorry I can't say something more helpful. To be fair, I grew up in a castle with hot springs, or down in the Vale, I'm maybe not the best Northerner to ask.”

“Oh,” Gendry says, disappointed, and Ned sighs.

“Look, on really cold nights, I usually spent the night in my wife's chambers.” At least that's what he told her. Those nights were rarely ones that were all that cold, rather ones where he'd dreamed in his own rooms, of Father and Brandon and Lyanna, and he needed to be with her just to be sure she was still there. Even on cold nights Catelyn's rooms were too warm for him, but sometimes it was worth enduring.

He was often too warm to sleep at the Eyrie also, especially when Robert shared his bed, but sometimes that was worth enduring too.

Gendry frowns, and then look over Ned's shoulder to the small, standard issue bed behind him. “You don't mind if I–?”

Ned's jaw drops open slightly. He should say no. He is setting himself up for a fall by inviting this boy, even innocently, between his sheets. Robert used to complain about being too cold to sleep, and crept into Ned's bed when he couldn't find a girl to warm his own. In the mornings, they never acted like it was anything less than innocent, but of course it was.

“Of course, that's fine,” he says, and Gendry grins, before sliding underneath the furs fully clothed.

The bed is too narrow for their bodies not to be pressed against each other, but Ned tells himself not to worry. It is less like the nights he spent with Robert in his bed, and more like the nights he spent with Jon in his bed, when Jon was only small. Most boys would go to their mother when they were scared in the night, but Jon couldn't do that. Perhaps that's why it took him and Catelyn a few years to conceive Sansa after the war – Ned didn't want to be away from his chambers for too long, in case Jon needed him. Perhaps it was more his own fears he meant to abate than Jon's. Perhaps he knew that unlike the rest of his children, something might really be coming for Jon.

* * *

In the end, Eddard Stark is just a man, and it's his body that betrays him. He wakes before dawn and feels heat, throbbing in his groin, like he is a boy of six and ten again. He feels warm flesh pressed against it and groans, driving further forward. For a sleep-drunk, half-mad moment, he thinks it's Cat.

Then he hears a low, male groan. Then he thinks it's Robert. Then he remembers that Robert is dead, where he is, and who he invited into his bed last night. He's mortified. “I'm so sorry,” he blurts out, not quite sure whether the boy is even awake or not. He tries to pull away, to break contact where Gendry's back is pressed against his chest, and his behind his pressed against his prick, but the bed isn't wide enough to allow him. “I didn't mean for this to happen. The body sometimes–”

“I don't mind,” Gendry murmurs, taking Ned by surprise. Slowly, careful not to fall out of the bed, he rolls over and turns to look at Ned. He smirks. “I've seen you look at me, you know. You're not very subtle.” Ned starts to turn red, but Gendry just shrugs. “And you're not too bad looking. So why not? Neither of us is going to meet any girls here. And it's not technically against our vows.”

Ned is dumbstruck as he feels the boy reaching for his laces beneath the furs. “I–” _I can't, it's wrong, you're young enough to be my son,_ he thinks, but he doesn't push the boy away.

“I won't tell Jon, if that's what you're worried about,” Gendry tells him, and that is part of it, but not quite. It's what Jon would think if he ever found out. If he can't tell Jon about it, doesn't that make it wrong?

_Could I tell Jon what I did with the man who I've spent half my life protecting him from?_ And looking at Gendry, it's easy to remember those long-gone nights in the Eyrie, when everything seemed so simple. Gendry unlaces him and gently takes hold of his prick like it is simple, like they're just two men who want to get off, so why shouldn't they do it together?

Ned gasps when he feels the boy start to stroke him, and then there are lips on top of his own, keeping him quiet. Robert never kissed him. Ned was sometimes tempted to kiss Robert, but he knew he couldn't. Kissing him would have made it something it wasn't, something deviant, something wrong, something more than two young boys getting each other off. Kissing him would have been honest.

Gendry is not Robert. But he is somewhat like him, and perhaps more importantly, he is still here.

Ned sighs and leans into the kiss, reaching for the boy's clothes. He suspects Robert was not a good man, and he did not deserve all Ned gave him. But Ned loved him, he loved him so much, and he is not ready to let him go.

 


End file.
